Islamism in the Middle East and North Africa

Abstract

A rebirth of religion is at the core of politics in the Middle East. Contrary to the secularization movement rampant in Europe, for the past 100 years in the Middle East, there has been a growing appetite to incorporate more religion in the state, fueling many activist and militant groups’ desires for Islamic political reform. To understand these movements better, an analysis of Islamism was conducted in four parts: (1) a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of conditions present when Shari’a is incorporated into the Constitutions of the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region, (2) a comparative historical analysis of two dipoles, Turkey and Iran, examining the historical context in each country with the findings of part 1, (3) a quantitative study of a specific strong Islamist state, namely Iran, to determine how much Islamism affects the functioning of the state’s economy, and (4) a comparative historical analysis of Turkey’s recent Islamist transformation based on the initial years of the Iranian Islamic Republic. The results of this study show a basic combination of conditions present alongside successful Islamist movements, namely authoritarianism, repression, rentier state status, and poor macroeconomic conditions. This study also explores an Islamist movement occurring now in Turkey, one of the region’s most secular states, and provides evidence that religion in MENA is not omnipotent, even in a theocracy such as Iran.